Digital Distribution
Digital distribution is the selling of games without the need of a physical copy. Digital distribution is much cheaper than normal as there is no need for packaging or shipping costs. For this reason the idea of digital distribution has been adopted by the PS3 and XBOX. Digital distribution is ideal for the person who just wants a clean gaming area that is free of clutter or does not want to go down to their local game shop and purchase a solid copy. However even though digital distribution is cheaper for the company it is more expensive for the consumer which makes it less competitive with the selling of physical copies right now. Another disadvantage with digital distribution is that modern consoles such as the XBOX and PS3 do not have the memory space to support a large quantity of full games. Even though digital distribution is not ready to be a replacement for full game releases it has been very successful in one aspect which is DLC. DLC stands for ‘downloadable content’ which is usually in the form of game add ons such as using COD as an example the map packs they introduce. However the main factor that is holding back digital distribution coming to the forefront of game distribution is the day one and midnight releases. This is an issue as none of the platforms available will be able to handle such a large demand for one game coming in at one time this is due to internet and download speeds also it takes away almost a kind of event on midnight releases for example where people wait outside shops for hours to get their copy of the game. Even though the midnight release may be seen as a hassle it is an event almost amongst the gaming community and is great business not only for the game publishers/developers but also for the shop that is distributing the copy’s.
In conclusion i think that digital distribution is the future of selling games but just not now as no console is capable of handling such a large demand of full games or the memory space to hold them. However once that consoles are capable of handling the downloads i believe that digital distribution will take over the market of selling games because of its low effort appeal.
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